Singing, singing,

With clouds and sky about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me till I find

That spot which seems so to thy mind!

I have walked through wildernesses dreary,
And to-day my heart is weary,

Had I now the wings of a Faery,

Up to thee would I fly.

There's madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine;

Lift me, guide me, high and high
To thy banqueting-place in the sky.

Joyous as morning,

Thou art laughing and scorning;

Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest,
And, though little troubled with sloth,
Drunken Lark, thou would'st be loth

To be such a traveller as I.

Happy, happy Liver,

With a soul as strong as a mountain River
Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver,
Joy and jollity be with us both!

Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven,
Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind,
But hearing thee, or others of thy kind,

As full of gladness and as free of heaven,

I, with my fate contented, will plod on,

And hope for higher raptures when Life's day is done.

To my Sister

Written at a small distance from my House, and sent by my little Boy

T is the first mild day of March :

IT

Each minute sweeter than before, The Redbreast sings from the tall Larch That stands beside our door.

There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield

To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.

My Sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.

Edward will come with you ;—and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.

No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living Calendar :

We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.

Love, now an universal birth,

From heart to heart is stealing,

From earth to man, from man to earth :

—It is the hour of feeling.

One moment now may give us more

Than fifty years of reason:

Our minds shall drink at every pore

The spirit of the season.

Some silent laws our hearts will make,

Which they shall long obey:

We for the year to come may take

Our temper from to-day.

And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,

We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.

Then come, my Sister! come, I pray, With speed put on your woodland dress; —And bring no book: for this one day We'll give to idleness.

C

To a Young Lady

Who had been reproached for taking long Walks in the Country

EAR Child of Nature, let them rail!

DEAR

-There is a nest in a green dale,

A harbour and a hold;

Where thou, a Wife and Friend, shalt see Thy own delightful days, and be

A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a Shepherd-boy,

And treading among flowers of joy

Which at no season fade,

Thou, while thy Babes around thee cling,

Shalt show us how divine a thing

A Woman may be made.

Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die,

Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh, A melancholy slave;

But an old age serene and bright,

And lovely as a Lapland night,

Shall lead thee to thy grave.

Lines

Composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey, on revisiting the banks of the Wye during a tour, July 13, 1798

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the

length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.*—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem

* The river is not affected by the tides a few miles above Tintern.